What should my computer be doing when I'm not on it?

[Hankysmoo]

What do you guys have your computers doing when you're not on them for about 30min-2hour intervals? I know its bad to turn it on and off and I also heard that the powersaving features like suspend are bad for the harddrives? Thx

Also, what do you guys set a screensaver and to what time, and what about monitor shutoff?

 

[Adul]

I leave my running cracking rc5.

 

[Viperoni]

Lol adul

RC5 is good, seti rocks too
*seti*

 

[Dee67]

I turn my monitor off and on when it's needed. I agree with the votes for RC5

 

[Eug]

OGR of course.

 

[Fardringle]

When not in use, I too have my computer running the Seti@Home program. (With the monitor turned off, since the average monitor uses more power than a 'fully stocked' tower...)

 

[Pete]

Sleeping.

 

[Syborg1211]

RC5 BABY!!!

 

[dennilfloss]

Kicking some DPC rc5 ass as a Borg unit. It does that even when I'm on it.

 

[sandorski]

Mine looks for aliens 24/7(except when gaming or watching DVDs).

 

[JimMc]

RC5!!!

Come see us TeamAnandTech.

 

[Heifetz]

Is there any truth to power saving features bad for the harddrives? I have my harddrives set to power down after like 30 minutes. The point of the powerdown I thought is so that the harddrive saves itself from spinning uselessly and therefore the wear and tear involved, increasing its life expectancy. But if its bad....I guess I should be doing some rc5 in the background.


Heifetz

 

[StrangeRanger]

Depends on the season...like right now when i'm not using my pc it is responsable for keeping the driveway shoveled. in the summer, that lawn better be f*(&in' mowed when i get home or it's in some deeeeeppp sh!t buddy boy.
j

 

[Stylewar]

You can also download porn when.....ummm....did I say that out loud? I meant I have my FM tuner on a christian station.......

 

[Cerb]

Let Prime95 factor stuff AND look for them flying saucers!

 

[hydrobum]

Sorry, but what is RC5?

 

[Spook]

Hell, I thought this was an advertisement for RC5...

I turn off all the hard drive power saving features... Hell most of the drives have a 100000 duty hour cycle... if you work it out thats over 11 years... I have a hard enough time keeping a hard drive for a year....

 

[TheDennis]

well the power saving feature doesn't do much for pc's it's mainly for laptops to save battery power. I have my screensaver set when I am not on it and at night I turn the monitor off.

 

[Whitedog]

ROFLMAO!!

Sorry, but I couldn't resist opening this thread. I KNEW SOMEONE Was going to say RC5!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHHAHAHAHA

RC5 is suck.

 

[beat mania]

Spinning down and up the harddrive supposedly is more stressful to the part than just let it continue spinning.

All computers are plotting to overthrow the human race when it has idle cycles. It's just lying to you when it tells you its doing RC5 or seti. Its actually plotting collectively.

 

[Rigoletto]

Seriously folks, hard drives are quite safe to turn off. My hard drive has a 3 year guarantee and is estimated at 40000 stop-start cycles. This means that if I turned my computer on 5 times a day I would get 8,000 days out of it, or 21 years 10 months. In fact, even a 3 year guarantee is enough- think how little your hard drive will be worth in 3 years.